Remarks of Edward Tabash at Inaugural Conference
of the Center for Inquiry's Office of Public Policy
11-14-06
We observe today the formal opening of a presence in Washington, designed to help secure continued secular government and devoted to the preservation of scientific progress in our nation’s official public policy.
The Founders of our constitutional system understood that religion should be, and must remain, a matter of individual choice. They understood that government should not in any way promote or sponsor any theological beliefs. Most importantly, they were committed to full equal rights for nonbelievers.
The America envisioned by the religious right would be a very different place than the one modern human beings still enjoy, today. It would be a nation bereft of all rights of persons of the same gender to express romantic love for each other. It would be a nation devoid of reproductive freedom for women. It would be a nation in which the public school system would become the meek servant of religious dogma with such issues as prayer and Bible recitation–that should rightfully be determined in a child’s home–co-opted by government run school districts and imposed on both believers, nonbelievers, and religious dissenters. It would be a nation in which the best teachings of modern science would be denigrated so as to appease the dictates of religious fundamentalism. It would be a nation in which up-to-date competence in the biological sciences, skills so crucial to the impending biotechnologies that will expand in this century, will be sacrificed on the altar of ancient theology, as our nation’s children will be taught to abandon the empirical reasoning that has brought us the concept of evolution, in favor of nonscientific and mystical responses to the questions science has already so capably answered and continues to answer. It would be a nation in which the promise of marvelous cures for seemingly intractable diseases through stem cell research would be stillborn. It would be a nation in which government could openly prefer those who buy into supernatural world views as opposed to those whose perspective is governed by reason, science, and the application of the empirical method of testing truth claims. The America envisioned by the religious right would also be a nation in which government could forfeit its social welfare functions to houses of worship and subject poor people to religious proselytizing in order to obtain services.
The America envisioned by the Center for Inquiry is much different. It is a nation in which no one can harness the police power of the state to interfere in the love that their neighbors choose to manifest. It is a nation in which a woman’s body is under her control and not the control of her state legislature. It is a nation in which the public school system is never used as a tool of religious indoctrination and in which the spiritual or secular life of each child is respected, with no government displays of preference for belief over nonbelief. It is a nation in which science would be allowed to reign triumphant where science can clearly demonstrate and corroborate the best path to follow in a given area of inquiry. It is a nation in which the quality of education would not be denigrated in order to appease certain fundamentalist views and no public school would be permitted to use theology to seriously threaten the majestic truth of evolution. It is a nation in which the life saving and disease-curing benefits of stem cell research will receive full government support and not suffer government-imposed religious-based opposition. It is a nation in which no branch of government is permitted to treat people differently, to quote Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, based upon the god or gods they worship or don’t worship. It is a nation in which government will perform its social welfare functions and not turn churches into theologically based social services outlets for those in the greatest need.
In the America, and the world, envisioned by the Center for Inquiry, we will, in the words of Thomas Jefferson: “Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion.” We will also, in further words of Jefferson: “Question with boldness even the existence of a God.” There must be no artificial constraints on the scope of inquiry available to the human mind. No area of human experience should be off limits to critical examination and doubt.
The Center for Inquiry subscribes to the words of John F. Kennedy, when he said, during the 1960 presidential campaign, that he does “believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” We believe in an America where belief or nonbelief is left entirely up to the individual without the slightest betrayal of preference by any branch of government. We believe in an America in which government policy is never based upon the appeasement of religious beliefs, but is rooted in the empirical methods of science and in the principle of maximum respect for individual liberty of conscience.
